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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 16 of 16. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 6:04:23
Trouble
I love principles. Principles, honour, integrity, the Law. I find these things beautiful. They move me and are uplifting to my soul. In fact, my soul delights in them. If you asked me what I found attractive in a man, I would say "his Honour".
Too many medieval romances? Perhaps. I plead guilty. Not realistic? Perhaps not. But one can hope.
But I suspect that you are just the person of whom to ask a question that has been bothering me since the Donohue shows were shown, but not live so that I couldn't call in.
What do people find so distasteful in "middle class values"? What on earth is so bad about them? How do they differ from "upper class values" or "lower class values"? I am truly bewildered.
Very sincerely indeed,
Dinah
Posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 12:13:18
In reply to Principles - trouble, posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 6:04:23
>Yo Dinah!!!
This is so amazing. Every day this week I've been thinking about you and this one issue, ever since you described yourself as "upper class" in a play post to the ladies.
All week I've been trying to get my mind around your social status, but haven't brought it up b/c I'm ignorant and haven't formed any intelligent thoughts really.
Let me ask you:
Are you rebelling from the cultural imperatives of your social and economic class? Or is that another silly stereotype?B/c culturally, especially in my sub-culture (aesthetics, downward mobility, "alternative" diets, sexuality, music, lifestyles and medicine),
the idea is that suburbanintes are not thinkers, they are achieving conformists. Affluent women are particularly conformist, they hold one another to very high standards, and one pays a price for the slightest deviance, especially regarding personal appearance, weight gain being the most severe infraction. They are also expected to be militant gatekeepers of the household budget, their husbands hold them accountable for any irresponsible or frivolous expenditures.Bourgeois values are all about success, and the appearance of success. Decorum, carriage, propriety, measured speech, euphimisms, non-extemporaneous (is that a word? sorry!)social intercourse, hierarchy, obedience, promotion of the status quo, skeletons in the closet, you don't call attention to yourself, talking about your marriage is vulgar and embarrassing, calling attention to yourself in speech or appearance is vulgar, spontanaity is frowned upon, neediness is unheard of, no questing, no inner journeys, there is no such thing as mental illness in the suburbs, if a friend or neighbor is hospitalized, we'll find a way to avoid the subject.
Obviously there are a lot of stereotypes there, but over the years I've done my own kooky social experiments involving squares and have found that there is a definate structure to the bourgeois social system and violators will be penalized. There are so many words you cannot say! You can't
say the word "grassroots", or "existential", or "rubric", or "capitalist", "sexual orientation", "hate", "dismissive," "grandstanding", anything that suggests thinking on a less than superficial level. It's unseemly. I can say them, but you can't.Oh Lord Dinah. It's too much, and I'm all over the map here. Do let's get together on this, it's not just an intellectual exercise for either one of us, right? But I am so happy that it's out in the open now, as our differences will become more apparent the more we talk, and many differences will have to do w/ our class status.
Anyway, I don't hold your love of Principles against you, as I hope you don't hold my love of values against me. I believe there's a huge difference btwn values and principles, and like you I take them seriously.
One's got my head and the other's got my heart, and when the two start wrestling I usually side w/ the latter.
I'm off to work!
troublep.s. I miss Phil Donahue so much sometimes I could just cry.
Posted by Lou Pilder on March 1, 2002, at 17:26:59
In reply to Principles - trouble, posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 6:04:23
Dinah;
Woul you email me at louelsa@cs.com ?
Lou
Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 17:45:10
In reply to Re: Principles - trouble, posted by Lou Pilder on March 1, 2002, at 17:26:59
Lou,
I'm terribly sorry, but I don't feel comfortable with private e-mails. But please feel free to tell me what you wish on this board.
Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 18:29:01
In reply to squares, posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 12:13:18
Trouble,
I hope it goes without saying that I asked the question of you in particular because of your expressed hatred of principles, not because of any perceived class differences. I figured that anyone who hated principles on principle couldn't be too fond of middle class values and thus would be an excellent person to explain why.
> >Yo Dinah!!!
>
> This is so amazing. Every day this week I've been thinking about you and this one issue, ever since you described yourself as "upper class" in a play post to the ladies.Well, actually I said I was an "upper middle class woman moralist", not an "upper class woman moralist." And I used that term because it had so tickled my fancy when you so disdainfully referred to those type of women in an earlier post. It would be more accurate to say that I am a solidly middle middle class woman moralist.
>
> All week I've been trying to get my mind around your social status, but haven't brought it up b/c I'm ignorant and haven't formed any intelligent thoughts really.
>
I can only assume that you mean that as a subtle dig at me and I can tell you I just won't bite. From your writing style and literary allusions, I am quite certain that you have a much better education than I had.> Let me ask you:
> Are you rebelling from the cultural imperatives of your social and economic class? Or is that another silly stereotype?My own humble opinion is that most stereotypes are a bit silly. :)
>
> B/c culturally, especially in my sub-culture (aesthetics, downward mobility, "alternative" diets, sexuality, music, lifestyles and medicine),
> the idea is that suburbanintes are not thinkers, they are achieving conformists. Affluent women are particularly conformist, they hold one another to very high standards, and one pays a price for the slightest deviance, especially regarding personal appearance, weight gain being the most severe infraction. They are also expected to be militant gatekeepers of the household budget, their husbands hold them accountable for any irresponsible or frivolous expenditures.
>
Well I can't speak for affluent women, but as a life-long suburbanite I must admit that I can't recognize a bit of any of that in myself, my family, or anyone I know. I suggest that you send a few of the members of your subculture to the suburbs for a while on a reconnaissance mission.> Bourgeois values are all about success, and the appearance of success. Decorum, carriage, propriety, measured speech, euphimisms, non-extemporaneous (is that a word? sorry!)social intercourse, hierarchy, obedience, promotion of the status quo, skeletons in the closet, you don't call attention to yourself, talking about your marriage is vulgar and embarrassing, calling attention to yourself in speech or appearance is vulgar, spontanaity is frowned upon, neediness is unheard of, no questing, no inner journeys, there is no such thing as mental illness in the suburbs, if a friend or neighbor is hospitalized, we'll find a way to avoid the subject.
>
Again, not in my experience. My suburb has a healthy balance of the fat and thin, the loud and soft spoken, the needy and those who need to be needed. Although I will admit to a certain fondness for measured speech and euphemisms in myself, I refuse to generalize to my entire suburb or to suburbs in general. In fact come to think of it, there are a good number of people in my suburb who seem to delight in trying to shock me.> Obviously there are a lot of stereotypes there, but over the years I've done my own kooky social experiments involving squares and have found that there is a definate structure to the bourgeois social system and violators will be penalized. There are so many words you cannot say! You can't
> say the word "grassroots", or "existential", or "rubric", or "capitalist", "sexual orientation", "hate", "dismissive," "grandstanding", anything that suggests thinking on a less than superficial level. It's unseemly. I can say them, but you can't.
>
I must assure you that I have heard all those words used with a fair degree of frequency. I must also tell you that I haven't found a high degree of correlation between the use of those words and more than superficial thinking. Actually I must say, to my regret, that a fair number of people who use those words and a fair number who don't share a certain superficiality of thinking. I find that superficiality of thinking comes from sharing a common vocabulary and set of ideas (whatever they might be) without closely holding them up to scrutiny and from groupspeak. And I have heard a fair amount of groupspeak from counterculture types as well.> Oh Lord Dinah. It's too much, and I'm all over the map here. Do let's get together on this, it's not just an intellectual exercise for either one of us, right? But I am so happy that it's out in the open now, as our differences will become more apparent the more we talk, and many differences will have to do w/ our class status.
>
Again, I think you exaggerate our class status differences.> Anyway, I don't hold your love of Principles against you, as I hope you don't hold my love of values against me. I believe there's a huge difference btwn values and principles, and like you I take them seriously.
I take most things seriously, trouble. Values and principles particularly.
>
> One's got my head and the other's got my heart, and when the two start wrestling I usually side w/ the latter.
>
> I'm off to work!
> trouble
>
> p.s. I miss Phil Donahue so much sometimes I could just cry.Me too.
But I still don't understand. Were all of Phil's guests confusing your misconceptions about suburbanites as middle class values? Because I must tell you, much of what you wrote would be considered a severe lapse in middle class values by those who actually hold them. So again I ask you and anyone else who has a memory and understanding of middle-class-value bashing to enlighten me. How do middle class values differ from the values of any other given class. And why are they so despised?
Posted by Lou Pilder on March 1, 2002, at 18:54:00
In reply to Re: e-mail » Lou Pilder, posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 17:45:10
Dinah;
i wanted to thank you for your courage to rise up fo what was just and true.
Lou
Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 18:59:29
In reply to Re: e-mail » Dinah, posted by Lou Pilder on March 1, 2002, at 18:54:00
Thank you, Lou. I hope I never lack the courage to stand up for what I think is right.
Best wishes,
Dinah
Posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 20:12:26
In reply to Re: squares » trouble, posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 18:29:01
Dinah,
Oh well, I misread that ladies-ladies post and thought it said upper class.
So I was thinkning about the kind of Ivy leaguers I clean houses for, 4,000 square feet and no books in sight, all the furniture outsized b/c it needs to be huge so as not to appear drawfed by the spaciousness, I can't reach the ceiling fans even w/ a ladder and double extender, so they have people come in just to do that, the pools are thoroughly cleaned 3x a week even in winter all the wood has its own special furniture polish, once a week I walk into the house which is often swarming w/blue collar laborers of every specialization, including a man that cleans daughter's 30,000 $ engagement ring, the house is always awesomely immaculate, and I stand there snickering, knowing how they'll have me fill the next 6 hours. Behind the scenes cleaning, chair rungs, the inside bottom corners of guest room closets, the glass case of unused VERSACE salad bowls etc. These country club suburbanites, I hazard to say are a different breed from the rest of us.I USED to have a problem w/solid middle class homeowners until I started working more for the terrifying upper echelon, which means more money for less labor, but the rules of engagement are something else. I used to lose jobs all the time over things like playing w/ the baby. It's a don't speak unless spoken to kind of clientele, they don't take kindly to arousal. A polite person does not unduly arouse others. So whenever I'm around them I just think potato. I'm a potato, wiping the countertop, I'm a potato getting paid good money. Potato that's me, goin home soon and watching TV etc...
Compared to this rarified atomosphere I consider cleaning a middle class home a practical debauch.
take care,
trouble
Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 20:27:01
In reply to Re: squares, posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 20:12:26
Have I put my foot in my mouth yet again? I can only assume so since you didn't continue the values debate. And I provided you with so much ammunition, too. :(
I'm sorry.
Your well meaning but obviously dense friend,
Dinah
Posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 21:22:23
In reply to Re: squares » trouble, posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 18:29:01
Well, now that you mention it I did have a couple thoughts about your post.
You categorized some values there that I find mutually exclusive, to wit: rules and integrity.
I think of people w/ integrity as rule-breakers par excellence. Abolitionists and so forth. Whistle-blowers are my modern day heroes.
Moving on, the values vs principles thing brings to mind the classic dilemma: Don't steal vs. the sickly infant. Do you steal the medicine or let the baby die. These trumped up scenarios irritate me but I guess we all enter the debate knowing full well where we stand, and this is supposed to make us think twice.
Another good insane principle I do is
Finish what you start.
So that means I can't stop reading a boring book. I've been in this situation! But what truly riles me about this principle is the issue of sexuality, when is it too late for a woman to say No, when do two people start having sex, what if she decides after a few minutes that this encounter is not er, measuring up to her expectations, does she have to go thru w/it, are these questions not ludicrous? But they're based on a principle that's been used against women and teenage girls for at least as long as I've been around.For me, the way it works is when I find myself in a quandary about the appropriate action to take in a given situation, that's the worst time for me to be guided by principle. Matter of fact it often turns out I'm being blinded by a sacred principle, and can't see the situation clearly, b/c I'm stuck on the way things "should" be.
And I just think I see this all around me, people everywhere refusing to accept what is happening in the moment b/c it's not supposed to be this way. One of my clients fired his limo driver for being two minutes late at the airport on September 12! He's usually the nicest and most reasonable person in the world, a sweetheart, but he has this principle about punctuality that makes him lose touch w/ reality. That's what I meant when I said we're all moralists to some degree, and it's kind of a disease.
Write back!
trouble
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2002, at 9:21:58
In reply to Re: squares , posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 21:22:23
Well, I hate to ruin a good debate, but it would appear that we agree on the fundamentals. I think it all boils down to which principles you choose to adhere to. And when I mentioned the Law as being beautiful, I was referring to THE Law, not manmade laws. I hope this doesn't bring down the wrath of dedicated atheists, but what can you expect from someone whose musical taste runs to "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace". (I like watching Touched By an Angel, too.)
I still don't understand the difference between principles and values, perhaps because I have such high esteem for both that making distinctions doesn't seem important. And maybe you could explain "rubric" to me. That actually is a word I don't run across often. But I can look it up in the dictionary, I suppose.
I do hate to end this discussion though. You are the only person I know who can call me a harridan without being the least insulting about it.
Feel free to call me to task whenever necessary.
Dinah
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2002, at 10:58:19
In reply to Re: squares , posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 21:22:23
If I can be totally serious for a moment.
I have told many of my cyber-pals and I will tell you as well. I have a deep fear of the Unspoken. If I ever offend you in any way, please come right out and tell me. It will almost certainly be inadvertant, the result of my lack of experience in interacting with people rather than any malicious intent on my part.
Posted by trouble on March 2, 2002, at 11:08:04
In reply to Re: squares , posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 21:22:23
Hey,
I love your euphimimsms!!
Do take care of yourself Dinah, your posts to me have been taking on a turn for the mysterious lately, and perhaps we've both been working too hard on things. Even Kierkegaard took a day off now and then.
Talk to you later-
trouble
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2002, at 19:06:50
In reply to rest cure (for Dinah), posted by trouble on March 2, 2002, at 11:08:04
> Hey,
>
> I love your euphimimsms!!
>
> Do take care of yourself Dinah, your posts to me have been taking on a turn for the mysterious lately,I don't mean to trouble you, trouble. But I've been wondering which posts and how. It's these darn obsessions, you know. I'm wondering whether I just need one or two more stiff drinks (does a frozen Bellini count as a stiff drink?) and a few more hours sleep or if I should call my pdoc for a meds adjustment. And if so, how to describe my behaviors from the outside as well as from the inside.
If I'm acting a bit oddly, that's OK, but I'd really like to know.
Sorry if this is a silly post. I'm usually a tee-totaller(sp?) you know.
Posted by trouble on March 2, 2002, at 20:26:23
In reply to Re: Principles » trouble, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2002, at 9:21:58
Hello old friend,
Hmmph, some rest cure.
OK Dinah I aim to please, but I won't let you make me make you crazy, not after the day I had, no.
I can only speak from my own perspective, so consider the source, it's not writ in stone.
The mysterious theme I mentioned had to do w/ a sense that you were becoming more and more serious w/ each succeeding post. Should we take you out now, and have you executed?
I saw increasing self-indictments in your messages to me, and I saw you place responsibility for those indictments on me. Hell, we all do this. They don't call us "women" for nothing.
And I don't feel put-upon, as you so wisely intuited that someone in my position might. That doesn't make me good or wise or enlightened, I just have a little more ego-strength than you.
I hope you are having a range of subtle and complex reactions to this post, for I am being strategic right now, while not taking anything away from the work you are doing for yourself.
I will end on a paradox:
I'm trying to show some respect for your need to grow at your own pace. You go too fast.trouble
Posted by Zo on March 4, 2002, at 20:11:04
In reply to Trouble?, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2002, at 10:58:19
IF you don't stop apologizing for yourself all over this board, you perfectly lovely and interesting and clearly good woman, I am going to reach right through the internet and whack you with my big Zen stick.
Yes I am.
Zo
>If I ever offend you in any way, please come right out and tell me. It will almost certainly be inadvertant, the result of my lack of experience in interacting with people
This is the end of the thread.
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